Where Do We Go From Here? Reflections On The Democratic Party, 2016, And Beyond By Kyle Leach

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Where Do We Go From Here? Reflections On The Democratic Party, 2016, And Beyond By Kyle Leach

Three things happened recently that led me to write this piece. This is
difficult to talk about because I really care about these circumstances
and outcomes. Otherwise, I would have just moved on. Writing often
helps me to process what is going on in my head. Some of this is to
extract meaning and determine any courses of action. But it is equally
important because I've been told so often not to articulate what I’m
feeling and I think it is important for others, who feel as I do, to
know they are not alone.

The first story I have to tell is the
most personal. I found out by chance that my father and brother are
seriously thinking of voting for a Republican this year. That may not be
very impressive to any of you, but for my whole life each of them have
voted consistently and voted for Democrats. I can't tell you all the
things that may have led to this change, but I do have some ideas.
They've been watching more and more Fox News as the years have gone on
and their life circumstances have taken turns for the worse, making them
even more willing to believe the rhetoric coming from the right. I’m
not going to blame Fox or Republicans; that is ridiculous. They simply
benefited from our failure to keep them as Democrats.

We, as a
party, pushed them away; neglected them; and they latched to the closest
life raft they could. We failed to give them relief. We failed to give
them hope. We failed to give them a glimpse of a future they could see
themselves a part of; and so we lost them. We’ve allowed people outside
the Democratic Party, and the Oligarchs, aligned both with and against
us, to define who we are and how things will get done. And that has to
stop. We have to stop blaming everyone else and take a close look at our
own failings and inadequacies; and fix them. If we don’t, we will
continue to loose support from our voters.

The second thing that
led me to write this piece is less of an event, it is more of a
progression. Now that I'm a Democratic town chair, and now that I have
been on the county committee more than once, I've had the chance to
attend and observe yearly events through a different lens. Different
people sit in the positions and even with some good changes, I still
have had far too many negative experiences, but the negative experiences
I have pale in comparison to what I see happening to others within the
party.

Most are being fostered by the Democratic Party
establishment. Many of those negative experiences never needed to
happen, and we lost good people because of those experiences. Many
people became discouraged just from seeing those events unfold. I joke
about how it is pretty funny that I'm often the youngest person in a
room, but the truth is, it isn't funny. It's a warning sign. There are
lots of warning signs. It is obvious that we need to change, but the
Democratic Party is an ancient beast; and it doesn’t like change at all.
Stronger, more important, people than I have relayed these feelings
through the proper channels, but they go completely unheeded.

The
last has to do with voting. Some people in the Democratic Party
regularly debase the responsibility we have as voters. I see it all the
time online. They reduce it to numbers and obscure strategy and
unfortunately that doesn’t inspire anyone or persuade anyone to vote. In
fact it makes voting look like an edict and a chore instead of a choice
and a fulfilling duty. We should be making it feel important, something
for everyone to take pride in. It is one of the most transformative
things I do each year, along with serving on boards, going to town
meetings, and writing and calling elected officials. Presenting people
with the lesser of two evils does not make voters, it makes voters
apathetic.

Each year, Democrats get directives from above. This
year was no different. They always echo the same things. "Think of the
party first. No dissent. No truths, we don't present ourselves." I'm not
sorry to say that this is simply wrong. All three will lead us to worse
places and further the distance we must navigate to get back to the
path we should be on. Winning elections and raising money have become
more than an obsession; it has become an addiction which drains the
party and all of its’ time and resources, on all levels, no matter what
the short or long term cost is. We have been borrowing against our
future to feed this addiction; eventually our dealer is going to cut us
off or we will die from complications of the addiction. If we don’t want
that to happen we have to take the hardest step, that is to recognize
that we have problems.

I’ve compiled a list of observations and
recommendations. Things I think Democrats can work on. Things I think we
can change. They aren’t fresh or new, but they ring true to me from
where I sit and I think all would strengthen and empower us
immeasurably.

1. Define who we are and define where we want to
go. Make that definition clear. Figure out the pragmatic goals we can
easily accomplish, but don’t stop there. Dream. Dream big and don’t just
talk about it in inner circles and closed meetings. Share. Sharing is
the most crucial part. Leave room for those ideas and dreams to grow.
Letting another party define who we are limits us. Break that cycle.
Above all else stop mirroring the GOP. They are a party based on fear,
sustained by lies and deception. Why would we ever seek to emulate those
behaviors? Stop deflecting by pointing fingers at the GOP. We can’t
change them, but we can change ourselves. People in glass houses
shouldn’t throw stones and Democrats live in a giant greenhouse.

2. Now that we know what we want to be, change the way we connect. This
is not the 19t century. This is not the20th century. Time to bring forth
media and sharing structures that work in the 21st century. Digital
and social media have to be a central focus not an afterthought or
parlor trick that you spend an hour on. We have to be where people are,
where the young people are. We have to get used to connecting in these
new ways. We have to get used to sharing.

3. If there is anything
we can learn from the Sanders campaign it is that you don’t need
establishment or Super PACS to raise cash. What you need are good ideas
that resonate with the average person, and clear messages. Change our
fundraising dynamic. Drop the Super PACS, drop the Oligarchs. The sooner
we do, the sooner we can build a future for ourselves instead of a
world conceived for the most affluent around us.

4. Stop
obsessing on winning all the time. At the rate we “win” we’d be better
off using a coin toss. Start looking for people we can build with and
people we can bring into the party to help transform it. Invest in the
bottom of our structure and prune the top. That will breed innovation
our party needs to transform. Leave behind egoists, information brokers,
and people who don’t want the future our party exemplifies in our
platform. It might take a decade or more but we could go from being a
party that sells itself to the highest bidder to one that forges a path
from the ideas of the masses.

5. Stop officials and elected party
members from favoring campaigns or shutting others out. We are told to
be non-biased, yet I’ve see this violated so many times it isn’t funny
at all. It may not always be the intention, it may not always be grossly
negligent, but in the end certain campaigns do get favored and others
get shut out. Endorsements. Just stop. At its worst it is a very thinly
veiled form of bullying; and the rest of the time, it just looks like we
are all in high school again.

6. Change our votebuilder
software. It is clunky and unsecure; the data is consistently outdated.
And exactly why is it gated? On numerous occasions, during elections, I
know of towns requesting information via their software and those
requests are ignored. Ignored. Even after follow-up. I know I always
appreciate being ignored and not getting information I need.

7.
Listen and act on the advice of the young, immigrants, women, LGBTQIA,
people of color, Latinos/as, native peoples. They are the groups in our
society that have overcome the most adversity and taken limits and
turned them into unifying rally cries and spontaneous opportunities that
transformed entire portions of our society. Don’t fear them for their
rowdy, unconventional, ever-changing behavior. Learn to embrace it. They
have fire in their souls and that power can push back almost anything
in the natural world. We need them in as many positions in the party as
we can. They are our future.

8. If you are going to bother making
rules, stick to them. If you are going to bother make a platform, stick
to it. Make each process as transparent as you can and make it as easy
to participate as you can. Stop locking things down. That fosters
elitism and stirs up apathy. This century is all about collaboration and
the sharing of ideas. We all benefit from our collective
intelligence.

9. Support a National Voting Day holiday, and make
it a priority. Make it happen. Everyone has a holiday -except
essential personnel. Get people registered and help them become
informed. If you want a governing structure of the people you have to
provide the opportunity for that to happen.

10. For the people
who would decry this as hippy- dippy esoteric nonsense, I’ll leave you
with this. If you don’t think we could do these things or change the
Democratic Party this much, with all the wonderful people and the wealth
of resources and talent we have, why should anyone ever believe we
would be fit to run an entire nation, or make decisions about the world?
If we can’t change something like the Democratic Party, what should
make anyone believe that same party could give our nation a better
future? The implication, by default, is that we cannot or that we do not
want these changes. And that is why we are in this horrible position
in the first place. It’s an awful place to be centered.

I will
live through several more Republican presidents and several more
Democratic presidents. I may live long enough to see a viable third
party emerge. I will see Congress change dozens of times and my local
legislature will change more often. I will see the high court change not
just one more time but probably twice. Every election I take part in is
important, every vote I make is important, but make no mistake that is
not equivocal to meaning winning elections is important.

Losing
has merits. It allows you time to assess and to reflect. It allows you
time to renew. It allows you the opportunity to find new allies and
redirect attention. Keeping an organization focused on perpetual winning
dooms it to failure. It deprives it of a future because you are always
focused on the present win, never looking forward and eventually you are
going to lose. Anyone that thrives learns to live beyond the wins, they
learn to adapt from losses.

I've never had the privilege of
having someone in public office who completely matches my ideological
perspective. A few have come incredibly close. A few have tried and
lost. For me, no matter who wins an election, the work afterward is much
the same. If a Republican wins the national election all my efforts go
toward fighting the severe ideological shift toward the right. If a
traditional Democrat wins the national election half of my efforts go
toward fighting for the things that help our people, that help our
world, keeping them where they are, and the other half of my efforts go
toward keeping that person from shifting toward the right. If someone
truly revolutionary gets the office, I will spend all of my time
transforming everything we are. All require my full attention and
effort. All are prone to setbacks and failure.

I try to center
my activities on what I can do, how can I help, fix things I can fix;
but I don't let go of the things I most wish were true. That keeps me
inspired. I've never taken voting for granted and though I've made a few
mistakes in those I chose to support, I've tried to learn lessons from
those mistakes. I don't listen to polls; they are generally designed for
specific reasons, or paid for by very specific groups, with very
specific interests. I don't pay much attention to where candidates are
in comparisons, because there are few people I would trust to make a
comparison of value. I don't listen very much to what politicians say
during campaigns. I pay much more attention to what they do in offices
they hold and how they vote while in office. I pay attention to how they
live their lives. Look at who they surround themselves with. People
don't change much at all beyond their twenties. If their statements
don't match their lives or previous votes or what they did in office,
they are probably lying. At best they are hedging. I wish it wasn't so,
but it is advice from my youth that has served me well for two decades.

I also don't vote for people who I don't want in a position. Most of
the time I do this in local elections where choices can be very limited,
but I have never ruled out applying it further up the ticket as I have
grown older and acquired more information about our political landscape.
As I said before, I've regretted votes, but I've never regretted not
voting for a specific person because I didn't want them in that position
or because I didn’t think they were qualified. There were reasons I
didn't think they were worthy. You are supposed to be electing a leader,
not a place holder. Imminent doom is a voting mind trick that doesn’t
work on me anymore. It is a false narrative both parties use to elicit
fear based action and to direct people toward predictable, controlled
behavior. Don’t fall for this. It’s the worst trap to get caught up in.

So where do we go from here? Well, some of us will stay in the system
and work on our problems from within. Stan and others I trust have
convinced me to concentrate my efforts within the system, so for now
that is where my efforts will go. Others who were never a part or left
at some point have the daunting task of building and contributing from
outside the system. I imagine you'll continue, perhaps with greater
success than me. I may re-join you some day. To everyone I simply ask
that you vote. Be involved. Don't throw that gift away. So many people
in our world don't have that right. So many people don’t have the
opportunity to use it.

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